Adobe Fixes Serious Photoshop, Illustrator Bugs

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Although they aren't as headline-grabbing as the patch Microsoft released Sunday to battle the heat of the Flame malware, Adobe has issued two important security updates to fix vulnerabilities in its popular Photoshop and Illustrator programs.

In releasing Photoshop CS5 12.0.5 and CS5.1 (12.1.1), Adobe tackled three security bugs in Photoshop CS5.1 (12.1 and earlier versions) of the photo-editing software.

If left unpatched, attackers could deploy a rigged file that, if opened, could enable them to take control of a compromised Mac or Windows machine running the out-of-date software, Adobe said in its security advisory yesterday (June 4).

The flaws do not affect Adobe customers who are running Photoshop CS6 (13.0); users of the most current software do not have to update.

Adobe Illustrator also received a necessary touch-up to address six memory-corruption vulnerabilities that leave older versions (15.1 and earlier) open to remote exploit. The new versions, CS5 (15.0.3) and CS5.5 (15.1.1) fix the bugs for Mac and Windows users.

Again, no update is required for computers running Illustrator CS6 (16.0.0).

Instructions on how to download and set up the updated versions of Illustrator are included in the company's security advisory.

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In this age of hackers, keeping your computer's files and applications safe is of great importance. Yet many of us don't know how to secure a PC.

Test your security skills by taking the quiz below. If you don't do well, we'll tell you the correct answers so that you can apply them to your own computers.